Obama’s Disgraceful Abandonment of Chen Guangcheng

It’s hard to know which is worse: one’s grief over Chen Guangcheng’s fate, or the fury over the Obama administration’s abandonment of him to that fate.

Chen was already an internationally known human-rights activist when he showed up at the U.S. embassy in Beijing last week seeking refuge. A blind, self-taught lawyer from Shandong Province, Chen had been held prisoner for 19 months for the crime of publicizing Chinese atrocities enforcing the “one child” policy. Chen had chosen a moonless night (his captors were not blind) to scale several high walls and stumble his way to a predetermined meeting place where Christian friends would help him make the harrowing, 300-mile journey to Beijing. He told supporters that he fell 200 times that night — breaking a foot in the process.